The service employees' union timed its demonstration to coincide with a Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce conference at the Glenpointe office complex.

Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union sought to draw more attention to its members' grievance with its second demonstration since landlord Alfred Sanzari Enterprises changed cleaning contractors Sept. 1.

The union timed its hour-long demonstration Monday with a conference held at Glenpointe by the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

The union's demonstration took place outside the office complex, along Glenwood Avenue, too far for participants' whistle-blowing, drumming and chanting of "Shame on you!" to reach the chamber's luncheon and job fair inside.

Kevin Brown, state director of the local, cast the office cleaners' plight as part of broader discontent with income inequality, which has been among the major themes of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have taken place in New York City, New Jersey and elsewhere around the world in recent weeks.

Brown said the union plans to continue public demonstrations – including a mock beauty pageant at Glenpointe on Friday – and is pleading the former cleaners' case with Glenpointe's tenants. Brown has said the union also is preparing to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

"Maybe they're making less money in the recession, but they're still making money," Brown said of Sanzari. "And to take it out on the least among us is wrong – it's just plain wrong."

Sanzari declined to comment.

The former Glenpointe office cleaners, who had worked with a Kenilworth-based contractor, lost their $11.25-an-hour jobs when Sanzari switched contractors. The union has said non-union office cleaners typically make near the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Only two of the 20 former Glenpointe office cleaners were at the event. Most of them have other part-time jobs, union officials said.

"All the families, all those kids, need our jobs to support them," said Luis Garcia, 35, of Bergenfield, who cleaned Glenpointe along with his wife and father.

Garcia, who said he has been working some odd jobs while he looks for new work, said he had already applied to one employer who happened to have a booth at the chamber's job fair: grocery store chain ShopRite.

Sitting behind one table at the job fair was Tania Morales-Quevedo of Mahwah, who directs marketing for her family's Passaic-based food business, Peruvian Import Co.

While her family's company isn't hiring, Morales-Quevedo can empathize with the former office cleaners. She said she used to run a small office-cleaning company, but gave it up after landlords started scaling back on janitorial spending during the recession.